March Madness is Back!

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is one of the most viewed sports events on television. In 2019, it drew an average of 10.5 million viewers per game! It is a great chance for advertisers to get their products or services in front of devoted sports fans!  

Like many sporting events, March Madness took a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic. Over eager fans are more than ready for this 68-game bonanza of buzzer-beaters to return. Whether their team is a front runner or a Cinderella story, the passion for college basketball is fierce – and the loyalty is even stronger this season.  

Stats from the 2019 season speak to how popular these games are. More than 70% of viewers were aged 35 or older, and nearly 61% were male. Television viewership of the tournament in 2019 was up 11% compared to 2018. Records were set for streaming too, over 100 million live stream viewers and over 24 million live hours consumed through their streaming platforms..   

College sports fans LOVE their teams, and they are especially captivated with March Madness because of the ever popular “bracket pools”. If you aren’t familiar, A bracket is a form that can be filled out online or by hand, with spaces or brackets for participants to predict the outcome of each game. In 2018, an estimated 73 million persons aged 18+ filled out a total of 170 million brackets. Engagement is at an all-time high for these viewers as they search, research, tweet, share, and post about anything and everything March Madness related for the duration of the tournament.  

What does this mean for your business? For advertisers, March Madness represents an enormous opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience across multiple channels and platforms. Roughly 70% of viewers are on a second screen while watching TV. They are researching stats and teams, records broken, their favorite players, or expressing their opinion about a play via Twitter. Using keywords such as “March Madness”, “NCAA Basketball Tournament”, or “college basketball” in your digital campaign can place your advertisement directly in front of these invested sports fans.  

With the right data, goal, and strategy, March Madness is the perfect time to take your shot at building engagement and deepening the connection between your brand and basketball fans everywhere.